Annelise Hanson is WPSU’s election misinformation reporter. She’s been looking into news and social media reports over the past few months about election misconceptions and misinformation in central and northern Pennsylvania. WPSU’s Anne Danahy spoke with her about what she’s found and why it matters in the 2026 elections. Here's their conversation:
Anne Danahy
Annelise, thanks for talking with us.
Annelise Hanson
Yeah, of course. I'm happy to be here.
Anne Danahy
What's the idea behind this reporting position?
Annelise Hanson
My role is a part-time election misinformation reporter. We are partnered with UT Austin's Center for Media Engagement, and we are working to kind of verify misinformation claims surrounding the election and just try to get the story straight. We have a dashboard that people are able to report information that they see, whether that be on social media, through campaign ads, through mail that they receive, even texts encouraging them to vote, or just anything that kind of comes up that they have question about, they are able to report that within the dashboard. I look at the dashboard and kind of go through the claims, even if there's a website that might have questionable information or maybe there's not necessarily an author to the story that's being told and we're just trying to look through that.
The main job that I'm trying to do is make sure that we're providing the information that people need to be able to make the decisions about how they're planning to vote or if there's changes arising or maybe there's an alternative option in one way or another that they can consider that they might have not necessarily known before or what are some resources that are available to help them vote.
Anne Danahy
Are there different types of misinformation, some that's intentional and more nefarious or some that might just be more accidental, like incorrect information on social media?
Annelise Hanson
I think the main places that from what I've seen are campaign ads. There's a lot of AI generated misinformation in that way. I know recently one of our reporters, Sydney Roach, did a story about the gubernatorial election with an AI generated campaign ad. And I think that was really important and a good story because it kind of goes to show that this new technology is being used to sway people in certain ways and maybe provide misinformation and kind of affect audience's opinion and how they'll vote in the election. I think even within House races as well, there's like false accusations here and there, but it's more just a candidate attacking candidate rather than trying to misinform voters or question election integrity.
Anne Danahy
So you've talked a little bit about this, but where has this job taken you so far? What types of stories are you finding?
Annelise Hanson
My main objective and the stories that we've been working on is to inform people exactly what they might need to expect on election day or ways that they can go about that. We've talked to PSU Votes what about resources that they have in making sure that whenever people are registering to vote or giving their personal information for reminders about voting or to any platforms in that way that it's important that they're keeping track of the validity of those sources and making sure that they are going on official election websites. Also we did a voting van story where — something that I had newly learned and not known about before — that people are able to go to the location of the van and there's a process where they can check to make sure they're registered. The volunteers at the van can print a ballot for them. They can vote there and then it counts as a mail-in ballot.
Anne Danahy
This is the Centre County Elections Office going out to maybe places where it's a little bit harder for people to get out to the elections office.
Annelise Hanson
And then also if there are polling location changes or new additions to the mail-in ballots, just kind of making sure that we're explaining the process in a way that people are able to understand when there's a lot of, I guess, talk and even at a federal level, attempts and changes, it can get complicated and confusing for the everyday person and just making sure that our stories are being as clear as possible for them to be able to understand.
Anne Danahy
Annelise Hanson, thanks for talking with us.
Annelise Hanson
It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed my time here.
If you encounter misinformation about voting or the elections, please email Annelise Hanson at radionews@psu.edu.
